“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Tonight we're here to tell you a story. It's the story of Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, two kids from little shtetls in themiddle of the Ukrainian nowhere who came to America and became the founders and pioneers of the American Yiddish Theater; they also happened to be my grandparents.”

So begins The Thomashefskys: Music & Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater written, hosted and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas...